158 Dr. Berger on the physical Structure 



be called ; on entering them with a torch we discover vast chambers 

 or excavations placed one above another, very much resembling 

 the different stories of a house, with a common entrance. 



The mine worked at Rammelsberg, and which is of so great an 

 extent, does not appear to be a vein, but an immense mass of ore 

 deposited in that place in the same manner as mountains are formed. 

 Werner is also of opinion that the vein (spitaler hauptang) at 

 Schemnitz, mentioned by Born, as well as two others of equally 

 great thickness, worked in the same place, are rather banks of ore 

 than true veins, judging from the uniformity of their direction 

 and inclination, from their nearly horizontal position, and from what 

 is said of their thickness.* 



B. Of Mineral Veins. 



Veins have originally been fissures in mountains, and In- 

 tersect the strata or beds of which the mountain is composed. 

 These fissures have been filled from above by substances differing 

 more or less from those of which the mass of the mountain that 

 they intersect is composed, and those substances have been preci- 

 pitated from a liquid solution. 



Werner has brought forward so many facts in support of these 

 two fundamental positions, that his theory scarcely receives a greater 

 degree of stability by any of the farther proofs which are daily 

 discovered. 



Two particular cases have come to my knowledge, which I shall, 

 notwithstanding, briefly mention. The one proving that veins have 



Journal des Mines, No. xriii. p. 79. 



